


Dear Molly

by miabicicletta



Series: Certain Calculations [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Advice, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-17 23:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7289701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miabicicletta/pseuds/miabicicletta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hardest thing you will ever do in your life is love the people you choose to love. Luckily, this will also be the easiest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Molly

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little snippet of something I've had kicking around for a while. I hope on such an uncertain day for those of us here in GMT, this is a bit of a balm. This is also evidence that I've far from forgotten about this series.

_ “Back Post,” The Guardian series of letters we’d send to our younger selves, continues this week with one of London’s own. Dr. Molly Hooper, the Terrance and Miriam K. Hoffmeyer Professor of Neuropathology at St. Barts and the London School of Medicine, philanthropist, and wife of the infamous detective Sherlock Holmes, offers these words to young Molly, and to us all: _

 

Dear Molly,

When you are nineteen years old and your dad calls you at 10pm the night before your second year finishing exams, don't be annoyed at him. He will die in hospital seven months later, and you will not be there. Be kind, be patient. These were his gifts to you. 

Get used to letting go. People you treasure will eventually vanish into their own lives, their own responsibilities, becoming little more than the occasional group text or Facebook post as the years tick by. The corollary to this is that still others will appear when you least expect it: a girl who sits beside you in A level maths; your neighbor in medical school; the girlfriend of a sort-of friend who later becomes his wife. You won’t notice at first when they show up. That’s okay. The people who change your life never wear a sign. They never announce themselves loudly or shine for all the room like big sparkly beacons above X-Factor contestants. (Except one...) Lean on these people once you have recognized them for who they are. You’ll be tested in some ways you expected (breakups, your job, finding an affordable flat in Zone 1/2), but in more ways you could never have anticipated (psychopaths, espionage, tea with the Queen). You’ll need these people often. More often, they’ll need you. 

The hardest thing you will ever do in your life is love the people you choose to love. Luckily, this will also be the easiest.   

Labs are chilly and the morgue not much above freezing; British winters are long and Central London heating somewhat  _ less than reliable _ . If silly jumpers go a long way to making grim weather and dark days a smidge less harsh, isn't that justification enough? Doubly so, really, since they are cute and fun and you like them, no matter what the fashion blogs say. Never mind the vindication that will come in the form of Alexa Chung, who one day—really!—will admire your cardigan at some famous person’s party you are compelled to attend. The Duchess of Cambridge will agree: marigold really is your color. 

Take the money the posh man offers you. Then tell the person he’s spying on. (If you feel badly, this posh man who carries a brolly, the air of the 19th century, and a set of nuclear launch codes, is wildly fond of your lemon ginger cake.)

When a shy Irish boy with nice hair and a cheeky grin asks you for coffee and then, later, for more than coffee,  _say no_. After he dies a manic, violent death, his ghost will haunt the hearts and minds of many people for years to come. Betrayal will take many forms in your life, his spectre will whisper, but it will never be harsh and cold and cruel; it will usually speak sweetly. It will charm. Offer compliments. And after, it will burn. 

Prepare for portmanteaus. “Tween.” “Brexit.” “Sherlolly.” 

When you are thirty two years old, you will agree to marry a good, kind man. You will imagine a house and family and a dog. You will picture him in the images you conjure and want these things. You will want him. Or, rather, you will stay up late nights, telling yourself you want these things. You will do this for weeks, for months, until the one morning you wake up and know for certain that you do not. 

You will break sweet hearts. This does not make you a heartbreaker. 

You will tell some (not many) terrible, terrible lies. This does not make you a liar. 

When you meet a man in the hallway of a morgue at half three in the morning, a man who takes seven years to kiss you before explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he cares about you, he is "married to his work" and therefore not interested in having a relationship, just nod and grin and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.

Don’t read the comments on the blog. Trust me when I tell you that no good  _ ever _ comes from reading the comments on the blog.

One day when you are thirty six, you will come home an evening after a twelve hour shift comprised of death and pain and cruelty. You will come home to piles of glitter on the stairs, takeaway boxes toppling their contents on the coffee table, a huddle of grown men engaged in a battle of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, and a senior member of the NSY singing _Frozen 2_ karaoke as your tiny, sugar-high monsters scream along. When you take in this scene of utter chaos and nutritional disregard after hours and hour and hours of your difficult task, to your surprise, aggravation and weariness will vanish. In that very loud moment, you will vividly recall every holiday you worked for colleagues who had partners and siblings and families. You will think of birthdays spent with friends and _their_ parents in place of your own. You will remember each accolade and paper you wanted to share with someone and couldn’t. You will look back on the ghosts of your own loneliness, Molly, and feel a gratitude that cannot be put into words. In short, you will realize your life has amounted to nothing so much as a collection of infinitely improbable moments, of which this is, magically, only the most recent.  Improbable, yes. But not impossible.

(All the same, hide the  _ Frozen _ DVD and lock it from the Netflix queue.)

For a long time, the man you love will tell you that heroes do not exist. He will say this without room for question, as though it is a law of nature beyond repute. You will disagree, quietly, until a day when you do not disagree quietly anymore.  You will tell him that he is wrong. He is wrong, because there _are_ heroes in the world, and they are people who have done so much more than they realize. They make the world better in big ways, and in small. They don’t always win, don’t always defeat the dragon or catch the criminal. What makes them heroes is that they bother to try at all. That they take action where so many just look away. And, oh, those people, they inspire  _ so _ much. Yes, they are maddening and irritating and clueless at times, but that only makes them human, not any less worthy of respect or admiration. Not any less worthy of love. You will tell him this, pouring out your small, overcompensating heart, insisting, again, to be heard. 

“I know,” he will say, quietly, and looking at you. “You showed me.” 

The outcome will not always match the hypothesis; what happens doesn’t always fit into the story you expected.  And you need not be the hero, Molly Hooper, to be a little bit _heroic_.  

(He wasn’t lying: Your hair really  _ does _ look nice that way.)

Love, Molly

 

_ Subscribe to “Back Post” alerts or check out the archives for advice and insight from the likes of Stephen Hawking, Gillian Anderson, Zadie Smith, and Mary Berry.   _

**Author's Note:**

> Some lines shamelessly stolen from the Internet's very own fairy godmother, [Sugar](http://therumpus.net/author/sugar/).
> 
> Comments, feedback, and constructive criticism are very much welcome :)


End file.
